December 2010
2 posts
“Marriage is the hopeful act of trying not to take someone who, by definition,...”
– Me.
November 2010
2 posts
3 tags
“In a few minutes, Rachel and Bob are going to be pronounced husband and wife....”
– From “Wedding” by Nicholson Baker, from his collected essays The Size of Thoughts.
2 tags
Litany by Billy Collins
You are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass and the burning wheel of the sun. You are the white apron of the baker, and the marsh birds suddenly in flight. However, you are not the wind in the orchard, the plums on the counter, or the house of cards. And you are certainly not the pine-scented air. There is just no way that you are the...
October 2010
5 posts
2 tags
2 tags
“A man should hear his woman’s complaints like warning bells, and then do...”
– David Deida
1 tag
An early thought on being married.
25 days in and I don’t know if I’ve had any grand realizations or epiphanies. People are still asking me, some joking and some serious, how it’s going. What’s it like, they say, nudge nudge, wink wink. Usually I just say, it feels remarkably like not being married, and this is true to an extent in the sense that we were already well and truly married before we were...
3 tags
The Wedding - First Look
When I started to break down.
Wedding certificate by my sister.
Thumprint tree by Madoka.
Cake by Little Nest.
What I lacked in talent, I made up for with sincerity.
The return of the Take That pop-up show.
First dance.
The Wong family singers.
September 2010
5 posts
2 tags
Ten Songs To Be Played At My Wedding
1 tag
A Few Things to Keep in Mind
The countdown has entered single digits Here are a few things to keep in mind when planning your wedding.
Plan everything together. This doesn’t mean that you will both spend the same amount of time or energy on the centrepieces (or as I like to call them, table middles). It just helps the other person immensely if you express an interest and an opinion, no matter how uninformed or...
2 tags
August 2010
14 posts
1 tag
2 tags
Wedding Songs That Don’t Suck #2: Dashboard...
2 tags
Wedding Songs That Don’t Suck #1: Jagged...
2 tags
“Some benefits derived from marriage can be secured through domestic...”
– Amy Davidson in The Newyorker
2 tags
Poem by Frank O'Hara
When I am feeling depressed and anxious sullen all you have to do is take off your clothes and all is wiped away revealing life’s tenderness that we are flesh and breathe and are near us as you are really as you are I become as I really am alive and knowing vaguely what is and what is important to me above the intrusions of incident and accidental relationships which have nothing to do with my...
2 tags
“And there are things almost harder to imagine, things you don’t want to...”
– Sweet Juniper
“Yet aren’t all families “broken” in some way? Marriage customs bring together...”
– Ellen Lupton in The New York Times.
2 tags
“Bateman had known Amanda Anka, daughter of Paul, for ten years before they...”
– Jason Bateman in New York Magazine.
1 tag
WatchHome is wherever I’m with you.
Adam and Madoka: July 3, 2010.
1 tag
WatchSharon’s friend Sam married her longtime beau Savio. I filmed part of it.
Three Years
Orangette
July 2010
7 posts
Invitations
Hands
3 tags
You will fail
Thoughtful piece by Shane Dingman at The Globe and Mail.
This is bad news for new dads like me who are aware they are not perfect. I am going to fail at something when it comes to raising my son. That’s an uncomfortable truth, but it would be sheer hubris to imagine it won’t ever happen. It could be something big – maybe a failure to properly impart a survival skill he might need – or something...
4 tags
4. It's Longer
(Photo from trekearth.com)
Why You Might Want to Get Married #1: A lifelong relationship is different than one that isn’t.
I know that statement is so redundant it almost disappears, but it’s also the truest thing you can say about, at least, the hope of marriage. And this isn’t to say that marriage is the only way to have a lifelong relationship, because divorce rates...
Reflections on 35 years
From the NY Times:
Anyone who has been married for a long time starts to feel like a soldier surrounded by heavy casualties. In graduate school, a couple who married when we did failed to make it through a year. In my first job, we were one of four couples who got together almost every weekend; a few years later my wife and I were the only ones still together. Deep into our married life, five...
May 2010
4 posts
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
3. Relationships are not natural, and won't come...
There is no right way to be in a relationship, but there are a million wrong ways.
Ask yourself this simple question - how do you know how to be in a relationship? If you’re like me you wanted to be in one long before you actually could, and when you finally got there things got emotional and insane faster than you thought possible. And by the end of the first one you didn’t...
April 2010
2 posts
3 tags
2. Why don't men write about weddings and...
Bill Simmons calls himself the Sports Guy, and writes columns for ESPN peppered with pop culture and scientific gobbledy gook Sabermetrics. It would be no exaggeration for me to say that he is one of my favourite online columnists. I have also devoted hours and hours to his podcast, the B.S. Report; it forms the default backdrop to my walks to work. Even when he’s comparing a basketball...
1 tag
1. Why Get Married?
On September 25, 2010, barring force majeure, spatial anomaly, or Glenn Beck invasion, I will be getting married to a fine-figure of a woman named Sharon Mah (she’s keeping her name). We will be getting married in a church by a priest, though neither of us is much in the way of religious. There will be a ceremony that is legally binding, and papers will be signed to this effect, and then...